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What is Hoarding

Pattern of behavior that is characterized by the excessive acquisition of and inability or unwillingness to discard large quantities of objects that cover the living areas of the home and cause significant distress or impairment

Why Is This Dangerous To You?

Hoarding homes increase the risk of firefighter disorientation emergencies while exposing the firefighters to a increased workload created by the collection of belongings.

Featured Articles

Great footage from Statter911.com of a three alarm fire in PG county Maryland that was complicated by Hoarding Conditions. This is a great reminder that Heavy Content conditions can be found in any occupancy. It is common to find these conditions in multi-family dwellings. The case study from 200 Wellesly Ave in Toronto is a HUGE reminder of Hoarding in a High Rise occupancy.

News from WKTLA.com Eight firefighters were injured while battling a blaze at a Venice storage facility, which took over 14 hours to knockdown, fire department officials said Sunday. Over 200 firefighters had worked to extinguish a fire at the Extra Space Storage facility located in the 600 block of Venice Boulevard (map), which broke out around 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

WEST PALM BEACH (CBS12) - The problem of hoarding came into focus in a neighborhood near West Palm Beach on Wednesday.Frank Buttaravoli's company, Hello Junk Removal, got a call about a man whose condo was filled with packaged food. The owner had placed cans at the base of piles of boxed and bagged staples, filling the man's living room, dining room and bedroom.About an hour into the job of hauling away the thousands of packages, rodent sounds could be heard in the apartment..

In the above news video the exposure dangers to all first responder agencies is highlighted. During the clip you will notice fire, police, and EMS agencies all responded to this call for service. The news explains the initial call for service as being a respiratory distress call that evolved into a HazMat situation, due to the suspected Meth Lab inside. This is a great example of the exposure potential to all first responder agencies. Let’s take a look as some learning points from this news clip:

Recent Podcasts

January 19. 2015

Hoarder Firefighting: 5 Things We Need To Know

Hoarding has been becoming a growing concern in our communities. How does this affect us firefighters? What does it matter? Well, on this episode, I talk with Ryan Pennington, who has done a ton of research on the subject, and he tells us all about hoarding and how it affects us as firefighters and what we really need to know. So many issues arise from hoarder fires and our tactics need to be adjusted because of the different dangers. Get educated on them so you or your crews don’t get hurt. This is something that can happen in any district.